Loading ...OMAR SOULEYMAN, a 49-year-old farmer-turned-wedding-singer from north-eastern Syria and a father of 9, is an unlikely electronic music star. This month he drew big crowds to KOKO, one of London’s most iconic music venues. Donning the jalabiya andkeffiyeh, traditional Arab garments, along with his signature aviator shades, he performed to a packed out venue full of white middle-class youth. Yet his appeal is not without controversy.
Standing solemnly on stage with his keyboardist, Hamid al-Mousa, the setup is as basic as it gets. His electro-dabke, an “updated” form of traditional Middle Eastern folk music, has drawn a cult following. Adapted by Kieran Hebden (who goes by the name Four Tet), a British producer, Mr Souleyman’s music seems to satisfy an urge for the exotic among the nouveaux hipsters of England’s capital. Not always with success, however. His set at KOKO, which culminated in a track demanding audience participation, was met with a mildly excruciating silence from a crowd bewildered by the array of Arabic words and phrases. (A small pocket of ardent Arab fans right at the front did their best to make up for it.)
His fans argue that Mr Souleyman encourages a cultural curiosity that is hard to achieve through other means. Those at his shows are embracing Arab culture, or at least the closest variant they can get, and this can only be a positive sign in the current climate of ill-feeling towards the Middle East. Mark Gergis, a musician and producer who introduced Mr Souleyman to Western audiences in 2006, wanted to “humanise Syria after it had suffered years of demonisation”.
The extent to which he has done this is debatable. In his favour, Mr Souleyman’s lyrics, which focus on the agony of being in love, portray Syrians as ordinary people with ordinary emotions. Against the media narrative of Syrians as one-dimensional victims of war, this is a welcome blow against prejudice. But sceptics point out that the majority of his audiences do not understand what he is singing about. Is this simply a case of Westerners distastefully exploiting the traditions of another culture for the sake of their own flighty party experience?
Mr Souleyman is fast becoming an idol to vast numbers of European party-goers, and has performed at some of the biggest festivals on the continent. Yet many Syrians have never actually heard of him; among those who have, tastemakers frown upon his mediocre representation of the country’s musical prowess and his kitsch take on one of their oldest traditions. Mr Souleyman is not oblivious to the fact that he is putting on a show (in more than one sense: he refers to his own on-stage clothing as his “costume”). One critic, a Syrian student, said “he represents nothing of our real Syrian culture…our country is already destroyed…we do not want further destruction of our culture.”
The motives of producers who seek out such acts are also in question. Four Tet, the producer who ignited Mr Souleyman’s career in the West, has always boasted about how little he had to adapt the original music. But by simply putting an electro beat behind traditional tunes in the hopes of preserving authenticity, is he merely capitalising on the current interest in the Arab world? Unlike other culture-hopping musical trends, whether reggae or gamelan, this is music from a world wracked by violent turmoil. It is a grey area, littered with the potential for bad taste.
But in a world with ever-evolving music-sharing platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud, it is only natural that tastes will shift too. As Mr Souleyman told Clash Magazine in 2013, “the style of my music has evolved over the years with influences of technology”. Tailoring music so it is accessible to the relevant audience is a good thing. Rejecting cross-pollination as “cultural appropriation” risks stifling innovation, creativity and the atmosphere of appreciation that comes when different cultures meet. There is no reason why music must remain “pure”—no tradition truly is. When well over 40% of Europeans think that Islam is not compatible with Western values, it’s counterproductive to mock any cultural exchange that promotes pluralism.
For many who were brought up in the West with Arab heritage, Mr Souleyman is a welcome amendment to the repertoire. As one part-Arab party-goer described his most recent performance, it was “cool—in a very strange way”. Mr Souleyman may be far from the cultural ambassador most Syrians had in mind for their most successful musical export. Yet his “cool” status can be more than just a fad. It represents an opening of musical trade routes between two often discordant sides of the world.